


Unfamiliar With Altruism

by DoctorV



Series: Archive: Doc's Old-Ass Fake News Fic (Daily Show, Colbert Report, etc.) [6]
Category: Death To Smoochy, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Attempted Break Up, Canonical Character Death Being Ignored, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 23:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13985454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorV/pseuds/DoctorV
Summary: Frank tries to do the right thing, James refuses.





	Unfamiliar With Altruism

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving some old old OLD fanfic of mine. This was originally posted to LiveJournal 03/15/2009, with the author's note:  
> "This takes place in the bizarre AU that exists in my brain where James Bennett from "L&O:CI" episode "The Saint" (played by Stephen Colbert) meets Frank Stokes from _Death to Smoochy_ (played by Jon Stewart) in jail and...somehow they manage to hit it off. (In this AU, Frank did not get offed by the Irish mob, he just...uh...went to jail. ...Obviously.)  
>  Um...this is after they somehow get out of jail.  
> I really have no excuse for myself. This AU has been lurking in the dank, dark recesses of my mind ever since I saw the movie and the ep in the same week. Then I went and wrote this whole thing on receipt paper at work."

"James, you need permanence. You need  _ stability _ . And I..." He flashed a self-depreciating grin. "I'm not exactly the most stable individual."

 

Frank glanced from side to side, then huffed a laugh. "I'm in  _ television _ , for crissakes. ... _ Was _ in television. My idea of long term is enough episodes to get  _ syndication _ ."

 

James just stared at him with that look on his face that always made Frank want to cringe. It was intense and Frank thought of it as his "looking into your brain" stare. Everything  _ about _ James was intense. It was flattering, sometimes, being the target of that focus. People didn't go into the entertainment field because they didn't like attention. But it was still unnerving.

 

Finally, James reached out and gently pressed his thumb to the line of worry between Frank's eyebrows, smoothing it out. "How long were you  _ in _ television?" he asked quietly.

 

_ Long enough that I remember when it wasn't about the money. Long enough that I remember when I gave a damn and my hands were clean. Long enough that it actually  _ hurts _ knowing I'll probably never be able to go back to it. _ "Years."  _ Decades. A lifetime. _

 

James smiled. It was one of his rare honest smiles. Not the kind he used to hide whirling mental cogs and an almost unnatural ability to read people. Or the kind he sometimes showed his mother to hide the hurt and sadness and anger she unknowingly visited upon him. (Mrs. Bennett was a sweet old broad, but it kinda pissed him off how she didn't even notice how she was hurting her son.)

 

No, this smile was the genuine article. Frank might not have the ability to read people like James, but he  _ had _ been bullshitted by the best. If he hadn't learned how to tell a real smile from a fake, he wouldn't have lasted as long in the business as he had.

 

Something about his answer made James happy.

 

"You may not be stable, Frank, but you  _ do _ have permanence," he said. His mouth tilted to the side in the way that signalled he was about to try to make a joke. "It took a  _ rhino _ to take you out last time."

 

Frank let out a surprised chuckle. It wasn't, really, very funny. For a while, when Tommy and her boys had him, he had honestly feared for his life. He still didn't know why  _ he _ had been spared while Burke had....

 

It wasn't very funny at all. But it was James, who rarely joked because he was too busy being serious and desperately hanging on to any little thing he could call his own. James, who knew he still slanted his "F" oddly sometimes because his hand thought it was supposed to be an "M," because that was the kind of weird shit James noticed.

 

So he laughed at the goddamn purple rhino and basked in James's attention and pleased smile, and forgot why he had tried to break up with him in the first place.


End file.
